SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Despite some public criticism, including an online petition, city Police Chief Christopher Cole said Monday that he stands by his department's decision not to issue a formal press release about a rape reported in the city Sept. 1. Cole also further clarified the circumstances that led to the decision.

He said the details of what happened early that Saturday morning are extremely murky. So murky, in fact, that the department was not confident enough to state publicly any of the details of the case.

To this day -- more than two months after the incident -- Cole said the details remain as unclear as they were in the hours immediately after the assault was reported.

"We do not have enough evidence before us to confidently say what happened that night and where it happened," he said. "Through no fault of the victim, we do not have much information."

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A group of Saratoga Springs women started an online petition Monday, demanding a better explanation of why the public was not notified. One of those women, Nicole Kempton, said the idea for the petition came from conversations she and other moms had at a playground.

"We thought maybe a petition would sort of get their attention more than us individually calling them," she said.

Kempton said the public should have been told something, even if details were vague. "I think that being honest with the public is the best policy," she said. "It makes you feel more unsafe when you're not given complete information."

Some of the ire toward Cole and Public Safety Commissioner Christian Mathiesen seems to stem from statements to the effect that had the public been notified about the reported assault, panic would have ensued.

Brooke Scott McConnell, one of the women who started the petition for an explanation, said Monday, "The women of this community can judge for themselves whether they are at risk."

"I think if their worry is that the community is going to overreact or be over-concerned, the fact is that in this day and age information gets out and they're going to create more chaos by not addressing it with the community," McConnell added.

Alfred Chapleau, a professor of criminal justice, behavior and law at The College of Saint Rose who served as Schenectady County's chief prosecutor for 18 years, sympathized with the difficulty of the department's decision in this case.

"The public's right to know is not absolute, nor is the police department's right to keep secrets absolute. There is a balancing that goes with each case, and there's a wide margin of what's acceptable," he said.

Rape is a crime that "has a high panic value," Chapleau said, like child abductions and home invasions. "Everybody becomes a suspect and the panic level goes up," he said.

Cole said Monday that potential panic -- combined with the vague facts of the case -- were major factors in the decision not to issue a press release or other formal notification.

"It's incumbent on us to make sure that we're putting accurate information out there," he said.

Although details were sketchy from the beginning, Cole and Catone said the department took the report seriously and immediately launched an investigation.

A seven-block area was searched for the victim's cellphone and with the hope of finding the exact crime scene, to no avail, police said. Investigators talked to residents of the area and could not locate a witness. Saratoga Race Course security officials searched each dormitory on the backstretch, looking for the victim's phone or a Hispanic male with a hand injury, which is one of the descriptions the victim offered of the suspect, but were unsuccessful on both fronts.

Because it was closing weekend of Saratoga Race Course, security officials at Belmont Park, set to open that week and frequently the post-Saratoga destination of track workers, were given a tentative description of the suspect.

The description was so vague, Cole said, that his department determined giving it to the public would only hinder the investigation.

Mathiesen reiterated Monday that he stands behind the department's decision in the case.

"We want to be transparent," he said, adding that because there were "many complex reasons" as to why the details of the case could not be made public, it was important to inform the public of the factors that weigh into that decision.

The commissioner also reiterated Monday something he brought up at last week's City Council meeting: "Walking alone on a street at that time of night may not be advisable for a woman who is alone," he said.

"When I go downtown to observe the situation, I see women walking alone, and it makes me really uncomfortable," Mathiesen added.

Although Saratoga Springs is relatively safe, Cole said, "We are a city -- we have city problems."

Everyone should take precautions, particularly late at night, he added, and "they shouldn't be afraid, but they should be vigilant."

McConnell feels providing information is the first step toward keeping the public safe.

"I believe everyone should do whatever they can to keep themselves safe, but everyone also deserves a reasonable expectation of safety within a community like Saratoga Springs," she said. "Our collective security is only enhanced by sharing with the public potential threats of violence."

"The city's entitled to an explanation," he said, adding that he believes the department's decision-making in this case was mistaken and Mathiesen "seems to be incapable of admitting he's made a mistake."